The Social Conformity Waiting Room

The Social Conformity Waiting Room is an experiment conducted by Brain Games on National Geographic. He set out to test whether or not we are all unique snowflakes.

Are humans pack animals, or do we think for ourselves?

When individuals’ actions are incongruent with those of the group they belong to, they may change their initial behavior in order to conform to the group norm. This phenomenon is known as “social conformity.”

Brain Games filled a waiting room for an eye doctor’s office with actors who knew about the experiment. Then a lady in the purple enters, and she’s not in on the experiment.

She thinks she’s just going for an eye exam. Imagine her surprise when all of the other folks in the waiting room start behaving oddly.

Every time a beep sounds, everyone stands for no apparent reason. On the third beep, the lady in purple makes a decision.

Social conformity is defined as a specific type of influence that results in a change of behavior or belief in order to fit in with a group.

After several beeps, the woman finally joins the crowd and stands, even though she does not understand why. This is a demonstration of a blind society because the woman follows the actions over complete strangers without any specific reason.

A society becomes blind when everyone converts to the same behaviors and lose all sense of individuality.
A “blind society” is a figure of speech meaning that the people in a society are being controlled without their knowledge.